Here is a list of product releases and updates for late December from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on next-day and zero-emissions deliveries, in-app referrals, video content creation, early-stage financing, and non-fungible tokens.
Got an ecommerce product release? Email releases@practicalecommerce.com.
Ecommerce Product Releases
Veho raises $125 million to reinvent package delivery. Veho, which enables personalized next-day package delivery, has announced a $125 million Series A raise led by General Catalyst at a $1 billion valuation. Powered by a crowdsourced driver marketplace, Veho’s technology matches demand for package delivery with qualified driver-partners, ensuring every package is delivered on time and correctly. Additional participants in the raise include Construct Capital, Bling Capital, Industry Ventures, Fontinalis Partners, and Origin Ventures. The funding will help grow the team, expand from 14 to 50 U.S. markets by the end of 2022, and improve technology.
Veho
FedEx receives the first all-electric, zero-tailpipe emissions vehicles from BrightDrop. FedEx Corp. has received its first five of 500 electric light commercial vehicles from BrightDrop, the new electric delivery and logistics business of General Motors. The introduction of BrightDrop’s all-electric, zero-tailpipe-emissions vehicles into the FedEx fleet is an important step in the company’s global goal of carbon neutrality by 2040. As part of that effort, FedEx Express, a subsidiary of FedEx Corp., plans for 50% of its global pickup and delivery vehicle purchases to be electric by 2025, rising to 100% by 2030.
Talkable partners with Tapcart to deliver premium in-app referral experiences to ecommerce brands. Tapcart, a mobile app building platform, has launched an integration with Talkable, a referral-software provider, allowing ecommerce brands to launch referral programs within their mobile apps. The programs incentivize customers to invite friends to a brand through a preferred social platform or directly with SMS contacts on their devices.
Riverside.fm launches Clips to empower video creators to reach more people. Video creation platform Riverside.fm, used by Disney, Spotify, and The New York Times, has launched Clips to help video professionals repurpose content quickly into multiple pieces of short content for easy sharing on social media. Instead of spending hours downloading, previewing, and trimming recordings in post-production, the new Riverside Clips feature automatically creates quick short content for all video creators.
Riverside.fm
Sycamore Partners acquires Digital Room, an ecommerce provider of customized marketing products to SMBs. Sycamore Partners, a private equity firm specializing in consumer, distribution, and retail-related investments, has announced the acquisition of Digital Room, a provider of customized marketing products to small and medium-sized businesses. Digital Room reaches a diversified customer base through a suite of branded websites — e.g., Uprinting.com, Signs.com LogoSportswear.com, more — reaching 90% of the U.S. population with 2-day ground delivery.
New Refersion Pay is a payment and tax service for influencer and affiliate marketing. Refersion, a performance marketing platform, has announced the launch of Refersion Pay, a payment and tax service for influencer and affiliate marketing programs. For publishers, Refersion Pay enables direct, automatic monthly commission payments. For brands, Refersion Pay simplifies affiliate program workflow with automated order conversion approvals and scheduled commission payments. Refersion’s first-party tracking enables over 6.1 million registered affiliates and influencers to refer over 615,000 orders per day. To date, Refersion has managed over $1.6 billion in affiliate revenue for ecommerce businesses.
Comscore announces acquisition of Shareablee. Comscore, the media evaluation company, has acquired Shareablee, a marketing analytics and measurement firm for social media. Integration plans call for Comscore’s clients to benefit from Shareablee data with advanced social video insights and for Shareablee clients to access curated views of Comscore digital data.
Shareablee
Snapcommerce launches Snapshop to expand access to consumer savings for mobile shoppers. Snapcommerce, a mobile commerce platform, has launched Snapshop, which uses artificial intelligence and personalized pricing to find the best deals on a wide range of goods. Leveraging a recent $85 million funding round, Snapcommerce has also scaled its platform to improve Snaptravel, the company’s flagship travel deals product. Snapshop is now available to all consumers in the United States.
Circumference Group launches CG Ventures to focus on early-stage companies. Circumference Group, an investment firm, has formed CG Ventures to identify, develop, and fund promising pre-seed and seed-stage companies. By leveraging the team’s operating expertise and deep technology acumen, CG Ventures helps entrepreneurs focus on delivering scalable value to customers and position their businesses for strategic value.
eBay extends free-listing promotion in Canada. To help Canadian sellers manage their listings, eBay has offered zero insertion fees on the first 100,000 listings. This promotion was slated to end on December 31, 2021. Due to positive feedback, the program will now end on March 29, 2022. No further action is required to take advantage of this promotion.
GigLabs’ app enables Shopify merchants to mint and sell NFTs. GigLabs, a blockchain company that enables non-fungible tokens (NFTs), announced its NFT app would be made available to eligible Shopify Plus merchants to create and sell NFTs on their Shopify storefront via GigLabs’ Flow blockchain. Flow has over 2 million accounts, 17 million individual minted NFTs, and 10 million secondary-market NFT transactions. Flow leverages an environment-friendly design that consumes thousands of times less energy than other blockchains.
GigLabs’ NFT App for Shopify
via https://www.aiupnow.com
Sig Ueland, Khareem Sudlow
